Mithras Cult

The cult of Mithras was an initiation cult extant from the first to the fourth century CE in the Roman Empire. The eponymous cult god, hailed as Sol Invictus (“The Unconquered Sun”) has roots in the Persian god Mitra, the god of loyalty and guarantor of pledges. Centering on the god's [Page 806]sacrifice of a bull, which promised salvation to initiates, and strongly astrological in nature, the Roman cult was extremely popular with soldiers, who disseminated it throughout the empire.

The Persian cap and trousers of the god hearken to its past and remain the cult's most recognizable referent. Believed to have been introduced to the Roman world by Cilician pirates, the first mention of the cult comes from the time of Nero, when the god was invoked during a pledge of loyalty to the emperor.

It was a cult that celebrated no public rites and excluded women entirely from its ranks. Members would meet at temples known as Mithraea (singular Mithraeum). Meant to represent caves or crypts and designed as an area for devotees to share the principal ritual meal, the temple's focal point was the glyph known as the tauroctony, which illustrated Mithras's sacrifice and important characters in the cult's myth.

Mithras was believed to have been born from a stone on December 25. His first miracle was obtaining water from a stone by shooting it with an arrow, an event ritually remembered by his disciples. The central event was the slaying of the bull, preceded by a hunt where Mithras overcomes the beast through great feats of strength and drags it by its hindquarters into a cave. The bull's death is associated with transformation, and the magical force released turns the wounds and tail into food, which certain creatures of astrology ingest. As the bull is also linked to the moon and death, with this act Mithras is seen to defeat death and offer new life to those participating.

The torchbearers of the tauroctony, Cautes with his torch raised and Cautopates with his torch lowered, continue this depiction. They have been linked with various dualities: the rising/setting sun, life/death, and the higher/lower worlds, among others. Scholars such as Manfred Clauss have interpreted them to locate Mithras as the intercessor after death who brings the initiate into new life.

For his believers, Mithras clearly had a prominent place within the Roman pantheon, separate but related to Sol, the Sun. The sun and the moon are regular features on cult images, and some scholars believe along with David Ulansey that Mithras was seen as the greater sun, abiding behind the universe we know.